


A Strength of Will

by PontiusHermes



Category: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: Cold, Determination, Devotion, Exhaustion, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Religion, Sickfic, Snow, Tired St. John, Walking, Will of Iron, sneeze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 18:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6340153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PontiusHermes/pseuds/PontiusHermes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>St. John is walking through the snow to visit sick parishioners. Unfortunately he is getting sick too...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strength of Will

St. John Rivers had spent the better part of a wintry Saturday afternoon visiting the ill among his parishioners. Indeed, there were many ill; it had been so for weeks. Some could not stir themselves to go to church on Sundays, something St. John simultaneously understood and did not. The flesh could easily be weak, yes, this he knew, but why they permitted it to be so was a mystery to him. His own self-regulation was matchless.

Thick snow had made his feet damp and his clothes-hems sodden, and he could feel the edge of the wind pushing its way through layers of cloth until he shivered. There was a twinge at the back of his throat, slight but annoying, and his nose had begun to run. He told himself that this was due to the temperature. St. John would not be swayed by such things.

He walked from house to house as the air grew dark around him and his head began to pound steadily. A few times he sneezed, body bending with the force of it, nose streaming into his handkerchief. His shivers became more insistent, but he walked on, down laneways covered with snow, from dwelling to dwelling. He did not rest, except by the bedside of an unwell parishioner, and did not eat at all.

Eventually, when he had visited everyone who required visiting and it was completely dark, he turned for home. The moon shone purely, strongly; a blessing. St. John's back ached, his legs ached, his throat was sore and dry. His sneezes came more frequently, leaving his handkerchief soaking. He longed to shut his eyes, but did not -- he made his way home. It would be Sunday tomorrow, and St. John had yet to write a sermon. To his determination, there was no question of resting until that was done. He reached his front door with a kind of hazy, feverish relief, but his will gleamed hard and cold.

Although it was approaching twelve and he was chilled and miserable, St. John Rivers sat down to compose his sermon. It would take all the force of his considerable will to muster a loud enough voice from his aching throat to present the finished text the next morning in church.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :)
> 
> Pontius


End file.
